The present invention relates generally to polyester compositions. More specifically, the present invention relates to polyether polyesters with an anionic functionality and methods of producing and using same.
In the production of oil from oil wells, the produced fluids frequently include water in the form of free water or emulsion. In general, it is necessary to reduce the water content in order to obtain pipeline quality oil. For example, a water content of less than 1.0% in the produced fluids is typically required.
A variety of mechanical, electrical, and chemical processes are known and used to dehydrate oil well produced fluids and/or refined or processed portions thereof. With respect to chemical applications, demulsifiers can be employed. In general, a demulsifier is considered a single or a blend of surfactant compounds in a suitable solvent system which is formulated to treat a particular emulsion on an optimum cost/performance basis.
The demulsifier acts to separate oil and water, and thus the produced fluid can be more readily dehydrated to specified levels. This makes the oil well produced fluid better suited for transportation via a pipeline as previously discussed. Further, salt content can be lowered in oil refining by a renewed formation of an emulsion with fresh water and demulsification before distillation. In this regard, a salt content in crude oil that is too high can be problematic. For example, this can cause problematic levels of corrosion during refining.
A variety of demulsifiers are known. Typically, demulsifiers are, in general, derived from alcohols, fatty acids, fatty amines, glycols and alkylphenol formaldehyde condensation products.
A need, therefore, exists to provide improved compositions that are capable of treating crude oil to facilitate the production and refinery processing of same, such as breaking emulsions within the crude oil in order to facilitate dehydration thereof.